Our class took a trip to the Brooklyn Historical Society last wednesday to learn more about Brooklyn. Although i visited the BHS in another class about two semesters ago, it was still a wonderful experience in which learned alot about Brooklyn. The last time i went on a trip to the BHS it was for a history class in which we researched vaudeville and were assigned to write a research paper on the subject. So going the Brooklyn Historical Society was a big help on giving me enough information to write that research paper. The last trip was basically the same as this trip except for the fact that we researched vaudeville and used the back room of the library to have the research session. In fact im almost positive that the two women that were presenting were the same ones that presented to my history class last time about a year ago.
This trip was focused mainly on researching Brooklyn itself and its history. the material that i researched in my group were mainly maps of brooklyn which showed different historical facts about its development. There were also some photographs which illustrated how like was back then in that time period, which was around the 1920s. I was unable to take any photographs of the materials because unfortunately my phone died prior to entering the BHS. I will however describe what the photographs and maps displayed. The first piece was a map of Brooklyn in 1925 which displayed what the original streets were made out of. the second map displayed how Brooklyn was divided into sections or towns. The other two photos hat i viewed were merely pictures of the daily lives of people who were living in brooklyn during that time period. Although the materials that i viewed gave me a deeper understanding of Brooklyn and it’s history, i was still left with a few questions. first of all, what a the main mode of transportation during that time and why did Brooklyn seem so much larger back then than what it is now? Hopefully we will be able to revisit the BHS sometime during this semester so I could get an answer to some of these questions.
